


Reverberations

by steelneena



Category: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Post RotJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:45:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: Post ROTJ - The world is changing around him, and Luke, amidst the still smarting wound of losing his father, is feeling lost.





	Reverberations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SwiftSnowmane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwiftSnowmane/gifts).



Luke wakes, gasping for breath. It’s a near thing, this dream he’s just had. A near thing and it terrifies him utterly. He swipes at his forehead, sweaty with mental exertions and fear. The bedding is in a state, sure as he is, but Luke can find no other willpower within himself but to sit where he is on the bed, head in hands and just breathe. In and out, calming the racing of his heart. He wants desperately to drop into a meditation, but can’t manage it; the mangled memories of the dream are fading, but his physical response isn’t gone. It’s adrenaline and the thrumming of cold terror through his veins like a poison and worst of all it’s the conviction that everything that’s happened in the dream was true.

It’s not like a premonition. He knows how those feel, and this was most certainly little more than a dream, but it still rankles him to no end that he’s been affected thusly. It’s a long time already since he was a farmboy on desolate and harsh Tatooine, and he’s come very far since then. If he met his younger self, face to face, Luke isn’t sure the younger him would recognize who he’s become. His wardrobe is black now, a surface difference to be sure, but he can’t help but wonder if this someone is representative of far more. Indicative of something inside of him that has altered or changed perceptibly. His hand, of course, is a difference, but a mitigable one. It’s invisible to the unseasoned eye, with the finest of synthskin covering the fine electronics that whirr inside it’s metal skeleton.

Finally, Luke brings himself to stand and walks to the fresher. There’s a small mirror bolted to the walls and he looks into it, leaning heavily on the basin on the sink. In the low light, the terrain of his face is thrown into sharp contrast. Depths are recorded there that once never existed – the trenches of darkness beneath his eyes belying his lack of sleep, the harshness of the lines on his brow evidence of the hardships he’s endured. But above all he finds the look in his eyes to be the most difficult to face.

Who is the man looking back at him? the young boy in his mind asks. Who is this man who’s eyes burn with a different sort of conviction? Fierce as ever but with depth of emotion that they once lacked. Evidence of a person who has lived too much in too short of a time.

Luke hangs his head for a moment and sighs deeply. He turns on the water – still so precious to him – and splashes it over his face. The refreshing substance clears his head. The dream has completely faded, though its affects linger. He looks at himself in the mirror again, the beads of water dripping down his nose and from the ends of his hair over his forehead and feels an unfamiliar feeling.

Defeat.

A knock at the door shakes him from his reverie. “Luke? Can I come in?”

Leia’s voice is like the balm of sunset and a soft breeze, and Luke inhales the essence of her presence as if it could refresh him physically. He hears the door open.

“In here, Leia,” Luke calls softly.

She stands in the doorway and Luke turns to face her. They’ve grown close since he revealed the truth of their relationship to her. It takes very little effort to reach Leia through the Force, and she him, usually unintentionally. They’re attuned to one another, as twins, and it is compounded by their natural inclination towards the Force.

“What’s wrong, Luke?” She asks, coming to stand before him, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. Luke nearly shudders, and Leia catches its reverberation through the Force. Without words she slides her arms up and around his neck, burrowing her face into his shoulder. He reciprocates, his arms encircling her small but powerful frame. Luke is so used to being the one people look to of late, the one who has to have all the answers. The one whom others rely upon. It’s a boon to sink into her, to let himself rest, knowing that his sister, his _twin_ , who has always been the strongest person Luke knows, can and will help him to bear the burden.

“Nothing. A dream. It’s already passed,” he tells her, and it’s not really a lie. For the dream is passed, no more now than the idle remembrance of shadow and grief. “I’m just feeling…worn down, I guess.”

“Oh Luke,” She pulls back and looks at him deeply. Her warm brown eyes are soulful and fierce.

“It’s just been a lot to handle lately. I’m used to the fast pace of the Rebellion, but things have been changing around here, and…” Luke trails off. Leia does not want to hear grief about their father. It’s the one thing against which she’s railed. The one topic on which Luke fears they will never see eye to eye.

“Vader,” Leia finishes his thought for him. Their bond has it’s pros and cons. Usually more pros than cons. Luke pulls away, his back to her and her hands, which rested on his shoulders, fall to her sides.

“Is it possible that I could miss a man I hardly knew? A man of whom I still barely know more than a few sparse facts about?” He turns to her in a sudden movement, suddenly possessed of fierce longing. “You had a father, Leia, in Bail Organa. He raised you and loved you and even though you knew you weren’t his daughter by blood, that didn’t matter. He was your father and you were his daughter. But I never had that Leia. All my life, being told that my father traveled the stars, that he _did_ things, things that I wasn’t meant for. And then, to discover that most of what I knew was a lie! All I have are a name, a profession, my interactions with Vader and his last moments on the Death Star. I felt his love for me, Leia!” Luke burns with conviction, the feelings within more powerful than he can contain. He grasps her by the upper arm, gently, but firm. “I felt it with his last breaths, I saw it in his eyes! They were my eyes, Leia! Something…” Searching for the word, he lets her go, looses some of his zeal. “Something tangible. A truth that I think I’ve been searching for for a long time.”

He looks her in the eye once more and sees none of the fire that was there the moment their father was first mentioned. In its place is a tenderness, the completeness of which Luke is certain Leia must reserve for him.

“I understand,” She says and it’s far more than Luke hoped for. “You wanted to avenge your father when Obi-Wan told you that Vader had killed him, you floundered when it was revealed to you who he was truly, but not for long, Luke. You rallied. You were stronger than ever in the months after Bespin.” Leia looks at him, _really_ looks at him, like she’s looking into him and he sees, for once, his own earnest determination reflected there, realizes he’s looking at her with the exact same quality of expression. Wonders how long they’ve been like this. Wonders if, dissimilar as they are, they’ve been alike in this all along. “You wanted to save him, and while I never believed it was possible, you say that he saved you, that he loved you, and I want to believe you, Luke, so badly. I _have_ to believe you because I believe in you. You are so so…” She clenches her teeth. “You are so _good_ , Luke. You’re too good. It’s your goodness that has got us where we are today, in some ways. You rallied the Rebellion, Luke, you gave us hope! You gave us the belief that we could fight and win! And we have! We have! So I choose to believe you, not because I have sympathy for Vader, or feel any connection with him, but because I _know_ you, Luke. You had everything you had been searching for for so long, right there, within your grasp, the father that you desperately craved. But Luke,” She pulls at his arm and leads him back into the main chamber. Together they sit on the bed, her hands clasping his, before Leia continues. “Luke, you are not defined by your father. You never have been before, so why let yourself be now? You already know everything you need to. He loved you enough to save you, to die for you, if nothing else. There will be time enough to pursue it in the future. Let his ghost rest. Let the past sleep, Luke, so that you can find peace too.”

Luke looks down at where they’ve twined their hands, watches as she subconsciously rubs her thumbs in circles at the center of his palms, a minute series of concentricity, rhythmic and soothing. He closes his eyes and sighs heavily.

“Maybe I am putting too much pressure on myself, but Leia,” He looks up at her soberly. “Father will always matter to me. I’ll always want to know, but you’re right. There’s nothing can be done now, and I _do_ know what matters. But sometimes, it hurts worse to have the thing you barely knew taken from you, than never to have known it at all,”

“Luke,” Leia placates, place a hand to his cheek. “You know what they say about love and loss? Would you really rather he hadn’t loved you enough to save you?”

“No!”

“Then stop complaining!” She socks him lightly on the shoulder. “Everything worth having hurts sometimes, or it wouldn’t be worth it. Now,” Leia places both hand on her thighs and pushes herself up from the bed. “I’m going back to sleep. Try and keep your dreams to yourself next time, alright?” There’s a smile in her eyes, though there isn’t hardly the beginnings of one twitching in the corners of her mouth, so Luke knows it’s meant good-naturedly.

She turns to go, but Luke calls out again. “Leia?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too Luke.” She says before she leaves.

She may be physically gone, but Luke can still feel the lingering warmth of her presence in the Force, and it feels something akin to what he usually associates with himself. Only this time, he can identify it.

Hope.

 

              

**Author's Note:**

> Normally I hate writing in the present tense but this just felt right.
> 
> Tfa and tlj are not and never will be Canon. Not that there's absolutely any references to them in this to begin with so it doesn't matter I just want everybody to know that's how I feel.


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